The present invention pertains generally to food article processing equipment and particularly to a machine for the consecutive delivery of tapered articles such as ears of corn to a kernel removing cutter.
In wide use today in corn processing plants are kernel removing cutters which include powered rolls which drive an ear of corn, without husk, past a powered rotary blade assembly. The efficiency of such, termed cutters, is reduced by the ear being presented butt end first to the blade assembly as the blade components are spring urged to a contracted starting position to assure kernel removal from the ear smaller end. Normally the tapered ear biases the cutter blade assembly toward an open condition. Entrance of an ear butt end first presents a blunt, large diameter end which the cutter can accommodate but at less than optimum efficiency resulting in the discharged ear having uncut kernels left thereon. Butt first entrance of the ears into the cutter tends to disrupt continuous ear processing.
U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,811,550 and 4,056,187 to F. S. Ajero are based on equipment intended to orientate ears of corn nose end first to alleviate the above noted problems. While the earlier patented equipment was an improvement over the hand feeding of ears to a cutter machine, serious problems still remained in achieving a high orientation rate and also the consecutive single file presentation of ears to the cutter machine. Ears discharged from a feed conveyor simultaneously in the earlier machines would pass down through the orientating phase of the machine and be deposited on a conveyor serving the cutter machine. The ears were orientated by a drum or other moving surface in the first Ajero patent while the second Ajero patent utilized an upright, reciprocating plate which cooperated with a yieldable, article pinching surface to slow the large or butt end of a gravitating ear while the smaller or nose end of the ear gravitated ahead of the butt end. The ear was then released for uninterrupted passage onto a conveyor which also received additional ears at random intervals. Accordingly, even if orientation was achieved, a problem existed in providing a proper ear interval on the conveyor.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,487,904 is of interest in that it discloses a machine for orientating pears wherein the larger end of a gravitating pear is impeded while the smaller end gravitates therepast.
Known conveyor arrangements, such as that shown in the earlier noted U.S. Pat. No. 3,811,550, rely on belt mounted cleats to engage and elevate an ear out of a random array of ears which arrangement does not provide consistent ear delivery to the orientating part of the machine. The machine in U.S. Pat. No. 3,797,639 shows a flight conveyor and article orientating means in combination.